


A Matter of Time

by spookywoods



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Post-War, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 14:12:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookywoods/pseuds/spookywoods
Summary: Things don't always leave a mark. That is...if they even leave you at all.





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maraudersaffair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudersaffair/gifts).



> This was written for [the HP Rarepair Shorts 2019 Wishlist Event](https://rarepair-shorts.livejournal.com/655492.html). I jumped at the opportunity to write something for the amazing **Maraudersaffair**.
> 
> Fic and title inspired by the song “A Matter of Time” by Fitness
> 
> Thank you to [digthewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digthewriter) and [kristinabird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristinabird) for the beta!

_**NOW** _

The ivy had grown wild, spreading over the old, storied stone as if it could cover the things that had happened there. Pansy gazed up through thick lashes. The old church in the eastern Carpathian foothills sat hidden from view, half obscured by ancient trees and the leftover medieval wards designed for sanctuary. There had been a time when witch hunts and inquisitions came after those too innocent and ignorant to defend themselves, and Pansy supposed those lucky enough to know about its shielding took refuge in the safety of the church. 

“Been waiting long?” 

She turned and caught sight of his form, a dark silhouette shrouded in the twilight. 

“Just arrived,” she replied. 

She couldn’t stop the pounding in her chest, the race of anticipation through her blood as Charlie stepped into the chamber and walked toward her. Seven years had passed since they’d last seen each other, a casual glance at some event in Naples. While Pansy knew she had changed, that time had started taking more than it would ever give, she hadn’t braced herself for the man that approached her. 

Charlie had filled out. Gone was the lean muscle; it had been replaced by a solid bulk, by years and years of the same work and routine. His face bore the marks of new scars and wrinkles and permanently freckled, suntanned skin. His auburn hair was thick and long around his shoulders, littered with patches of grey; his darker beard was almost consumed by it. 

As if following her gaze, he raised a hand to his face and cupped his chin. “I didn’t even think to shave,” he grinned. “I had forgotten how much you hated this thing.” 

“I don’t,” she gulped. “I don’t hate it now.” 

“Is that right?” He stopped a few paces from her and smiled. “Your note was a surprise. Wasn’t sure you’d ever contact me again. Merlin, I wasn’t sure you’d even show.”

“And yet you came anyway.” 

Charlie shot her a look. His eyes were heavy with intent, a swirl of intensity and desire, and the smallest hint of a question. Gone was the rebel, the young man on the edge of the world chasing adventure and adrenaline, masking pain with confidence and charisma. The man before her exuded a quiet and easy sort of energy, like he’d managed to chase out the darkness from underneath his skin.

“I wanted to see you,” he finally said before he wrapped his arms around her. “And I wanted you to see me,” he whispered against her lips. 

_**FIRST** _

He wasn’t sure why he’d let the latest magizoologist talk him into going to the big city. Charlie wasn’t going to _get wild_ and _let loose_. Bacău held about as much excitement as any other city, and while the others might look forward to some time off the preserve, all Charlie wanted was to find a new pair of boots and a few good books. The real world wasn’t something he wanted to get back to anytime soon. 

The Strand held a few magical shops on the lighter side of dark. Generally, Charlie tended to prefer their wares, but in his experience, the murkier the establishment, the better the intel in regards to the preserve that might slip through. No news, to his mild disappointment, was good news, so he spent an extra bit of time perusing the stacks at Denbo & Arbey Books. He’d just found a promising first edition of _Scales, Males, and Trails_ when he heard her.

“This is not what I asked for,” the smooth feminine voice idly seethed. 

“We didn’t have what you asked for,” the clerk replied. “This was the next best thing.” 

“Hmm.” 

Charlie craned his neck around the bookcase to catch a glimpse of the woman. 

Red. 

It was the red cloak that drew him in. He traced the lines, the expert wrapping as it wove its way around her curves and latched securely with a large, silver broach over her chest. Her pale skin glowed in the dim light, porcelain and pure. 

“Now I’m to return empty-handed. You could’ve just owled me.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. They were dark and infinite, and when they focused on Charlie he realised the legends of Sirens and Veelas and Succubi had to all be true; but nothing compared to the pull of the woman in front of him. She left him breathless and struggling in some imagined sort of quicksand, weighed down with desire and mystery, leaving him to get lost in a subtle, scintillating revelry. 

“Perhaps,” she moved closer to him, “it won’t be a wasted trip.” 

**_LATER_ **

In twenty-nine years, she’d never stayed at The Leaky Cauldron. As she knocked on the door for the fourth time that week, she knew she should feel shameful. But when Charlie opened the door and smiled at her, she only felt warmth and peace, a sort of homecoming. 

When he held her, her heart was at peace. The gnawing anxieties of her life and regrets disappeared. His rough and calloused hands gripped her tight, but allowed her to move and steer them forward at her own pace. He kissed her as if his life depended upon that contact—like she was air and he could never catch his breath. When they fucked, he started gentle and easy. He liked to use his mouth on her but she didn’t care for the stubble burns on her thighs. 

“I need you inside me,” she’d end up begging at some point. 

So he eased into her, touched her all over, trailed kisses down her neck and teased her breasts with his tongue. When she moaned “More” and “Harder” he pressed deeper, never relenting until he hit the very fringes of her soul. At some point, the charge of desire peaked, and things would turn frantic. Sometimes she would grab his hands and make him hold her down, make him fuck her until her muscles went limp from the strain of it all. Sometimes he’d take her from behind, leave marks on her arse until it stayed red. Then he’d hold her to his chest until he found the salvation he’d been chasing inside her. Other times, she would take control, press him down into the bed and stare at his scars, trace them and kiss them and ask him which of them were his greatest conquests. 

“The great ones don’t always leave a mark,” he said once. 

She kissed him fiercely and rocked her hips until she found absolution. 

No matter what they did or how they did it, Pansy would always seek out his hand and claim it in her own before she fell over the edge of oblivion.

When he asked her why she did it, she’d shrug, until one time he pressed further. “Come on, love, you have a reason for everything you do.” 

She stared into his hazel eyes long and hard. “I could fuck anyone,” she said finally. 

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Charlie agreed. 

“But I choose you,” she added. “I take your hand to remind myself that it’s you.”

He laughed. “I’m losing my touch if you can’t remember that it’s me inside you.” 

“No,” she frowned and smacked his chest lightly. “I do it so I know it’s real.” She trailed her fingernails over his skin. “So I know that you’re real.” 

The smile on his face faded and he pulled her closer, whispering, “After the war, I felt that way about everything.” He kissed her temple and they lay there in silence for a long time. “It didn’t feel real. It felt like a game, like a manual... _here._ Do these things and life will go on and you’ll be happy.”

Pansy shivered and pulled away. “And now?”

Charlie turned and stared at her. “You weren’t in the manual.” 

_**NEXT** _

Charlie’s hand curled tighter around his mug as his dad read the announcements from the Sunday _Prophet._ It was a few days before Christmas and any cheer he’d been stockpiling flew out the window when he’d heard _‘Pansy Parkinson to wed Theodore Nott on the Ides of March’._

He’d known it was coming, had known for months. He knew when they’d started meeting in Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Barcelona, that she’d left her job. She couldn’t exactly explain personal Portkey requests to Romania. But every time she’d owled—no matter the destination required—he went. He couldn’t stomach the thought that their last time would have been the last. So he took vacation days, took research sabbaticals, made any and every excuse he could come up with just so he could be with her, even for just a few days. 

“I’m going out,” he said before tossing his mug in the sink. 

The harsh winter air stung his skin as he marched into the garden and apparated to the Immortal Earl tavern. Charlie cosied up with a pint, then another, and another, and he waited for the alcohol to warm his blood, to feed the twisted thing that dwelt inside him. But his heart remained frozen, his body chilled, and the night faded into the morning before he sobered up enough to catch the Knight Bus into London. 

Before he Portkeyed back to Romania, he sent an apology to his mum with all his usual excuses about work and emergencies. 

And then he sent a note to _her._

 _I can’t,_ was all it said. 

Because he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t finish the note. He couldn’t share her with someone else. He couldn’t stay in the shadows and lie about what they did together. He couldn’t hide what she was to him. He couldn’t stand in the fire of what they were doing and let it keep consuming him with no reprieve. He couldn’t bear the feeling that they were leading double lives, not when he could barely handle the life he was leading. 

When she replied with a time and a place to meet, the abandoned church on the edge of the foothills outside the preserve, he simply replied, _I can’t._

_**LAST** _

That April was wetter than any he’d experienced in all his years at the preserve. The nights would storm so loud his cottage would shake and the lightning would linger, like a buzzing, striking all around in an excited, electric dance. It was one of those nights when she showed up on his door, soaked through and silent as a grave. 

Charlie ushered her inside and peeled off her clothes, pushing her to stand in front of the raging fire. 

“You couldn’t cast an Umbrella Charm?” he asked. He ran his hands over her cold arms and then cast a warming spell. Her pale skin tinged darker, the slightest hint of pink, or maybe that was just the firelight. He raked his eyes over her body, unsure if it had changed so much from his memory or if her waist had always been so thin. He blinked and turned away. “Why are you here?”

“You wouldn’t agree to see me. So I came here,” she whispered. “I—I need you to see me.” 

He stared at her. “I see you,” he said, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. He fought to get his clothes off, to feel her fingers trail over his scars one more time. He was desperate to get inside her, to stay there as long as possible, to fall victim to those dark eyes and lose himself forever. 

“You belong to someone else now,” he said, clutching her cheek when she was above him.

She leaned down. “I don’t belong to anyone.” 

When the storm cleared in the early hours of the morning, they’d finally found sleep curled up in front of the dying fire, naked and tangled together under the quilt that his mum had made him for Christmas.

And when his tempus sounded for morning rounds, Charlie woke up alone. 

_**NOW** _

Tangled together on the floor of the church, Charlie wasn’t sure if he’d grown soft in his ageing years, or if the longing and nostalgia for her had quieted his former fears. But when she ran a finger over his collarbone and traced along a thick scar, something deep and hidden rose up in his chest. 

“Tell me about all your new scars,” she said. “Which one has the greatest story?” 

He bit his lip and stared into her dark, brown eyes. 

“The greatest ones don’t always leave a mark.”


End file.
